Students Got A Lesson In Hysteria

June 06, 1990|The Morning Call

To the Editor:

The Mind Police have reared their empty heads again. An educator with 30 years of experience is being crucified in your paper for daring to expose his students to a selected passage from a mildly controversial R-rated film. Is it possible that a small segment of any R-rated film, carefully chosen and responsibly presented, would be of any benefit to young minds? Take away the "I can't believe it's butter!" scene from "Last Tango in Paris," and you are left with a manic encounter between two strangers. Could the pathetic scene of Rizzo dying on the bus, finally being delivered by his friend to the Miami of his dreams at the end of "Midnight Cowboy," possibly have anything to say to young minds? I think it certainly is possible, and I would not be offended if Cornelius O'Donnell took the time and effort to carefully select passages from even these X-rated movies and present them to my child in a supervised and examined manner.

I don't want my child exposed to simple-minded blanket statements about R-rated films from men with "Dr." in front of their name, except in the context of arrogance and ignorance. I, like many, do not know what was contained in the 15 minutes of film that was shown, and I'll reserve judgment on him until I do. I think it is premature to rake O'Donnell over the coals of intolerance before the facts are known concerning the exact nature of the material that he used in his classroom. After all, the minors in his classroom were "accompanied by an adult," and one with 30 years experience as an educator; by what basis do we mistrust his judgment prior to knowing the facts?

I am more concerned about an educational environment in which educators like O'Donnell are punished for deviating too far from the mediocre middle-ground of committee-generated curricula. It is important that we guard the quality of our education system, but I wonder at the loss of empowerment that fellow teachers must feel when they see a colleague hung out to dry in print by an administration before the facts of the case are known? I wonder what is happening to our education system. I believe less and less that it has anything to do with funding.

At the very least, O'Donnell has succeeded in exposing his students to the dynamics of hysterical prejudgment and knee-jerk censorship. We should commend him for giving our students some real insight into the damage that small minds can wreak.